Pavel Žáček is a Czech academic and government official. He was the first Director (2008–2010) of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes

Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes

The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes is a Czech government agency and research institute, founded by the Czech government in 2007. Its purpose is to gather, analyse and make accessible documents from the Nazi and Communist regimes...

, the Czech government agency

Government agency

A government or state agency is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an intelligence agency. There is a notable variety of agency types...

 and research institute

Research institute

A research institute is an establishment endowed for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research...

 tasked with investigation of the crimes of the Communist regime of Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 that was declared to be criminal in 1993. He holds an M.A. (1992) and a Ph.D. (2001) in Mass Communication from Charles University of Prague. He worked for the Office for the Documentation and the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism from 1993, where he was appointed Deputy Director in 1998. From 1999 to 2006, he was Senior Researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic was established in 1992 by the Czech National Council as the Czech successor of the former Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The Academy is the leading non-university public research institution in the Czech Republic...

.

He was a member of the Czech Television Council 2001–2003. He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism

Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism

The Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism , which was signed on 3 June 2008, was a declaration signed by prominent European politicians, former political prisoners and historians, including past signatories of Charter 77 such as Václav Havel, which called for condemnation of and...

. In 2010, he was succeeded as Director by Jiří Pernes. He is now an Adviser to the Director of the Institute Daniel Herman

Daniel Herman

Daniel Herman is a Czech government official and former Catholic priest. He has been spokesman of the Czech Bishops' Conference. In 2010, he was appointed Director of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes by the Czech government.He was born in České Budějovice, and began studying...

.